Latin American cleaners on Friday 3rd April held the latest in a series of weekly demonstrations outside their former workplace in the insurance firm Willis in the City of London against the sacking of five of their colleagues by the Mitie cleaning contractor. The four men and one woman were dismissed following an email conversation with management, in which the cleaners registered their unhappiness at a sudden change in shift patterns, done without consultation.
Members of North London SF demonstrated alongside other militants outside the head offices of London & Regional Properties, owners of Berns Salonger, a company that treats the cleaners it employs with intolerable conditions.
On June 12th, cleaners working for ISS at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) in London were called to a meeting by management. The cleaners were “processed” by immigration officials who detained nine of them as “illegal immigrants”. It was perhaps no coincidence that a picket of SOAS’ governing body demanding the reinstatement of victimised SOAS UNISON Branch Chair José Stalin Bermudez, who had been prominent in organising cleaners, had been called for that morning.
Those detained were denied union representation, but a campaign was quickly organised by SOAS campus unions and students, migrant worker activists and anti-deportation campaigners. SOAS management was held responsible for ISS “ambushing” their cleaners as punishment for winning union recognition and the London Living Wage.
Workers in contract cleaning face low wages, a lack of basic employment rights, bullying management and victimisation for union activities. However, especially among Latin Americans, self-organisation has sustained struggles against their unscrupulous multi-national employers, and the fight against the immigration controls which are used to sack unwanted workers and victimise union activists.
South London Solidarity Federation Supports the Tube Cleaners.
An article about the Tube cleaners Strike and action reports.
July 4th, 2008 taken from LibCom.org
South London SolFed have involved with this campaign to reinstate five sacked Columbian cleaners.
More than forty people demonstrated outside the Institute of Engineering and Technology in Savoy Place on Wednesday 22nd, in support of Colombian cleaners unfairly dismissed by the cleaning company Amey. There was a simultaneous demonstration in Bristol outside Amey’s offices there. 
One of the sacked cleaners and a former trade unionist in Colombia, Julio Mayor, said: